The ballot for the 2010 Baseball Hall of Fame has been announced. Roberto Alomar, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, and Andres Galarraga are among the 15 new names added to the ballot.
Do any of the ballot’s new additions strike you as automatic selections? What about the holdovers? Let’s discuss.
My ballot is:
Tim Raines
Bert Blyleven
My list is none of the above. I hope no one is elected this year. There is no player of Hall of Fame caliber.
Well, I’ll always vote for Blyleven. He’s been sadly underserved by the voters.
As to the rest:
McGwire should certainly be in. That he’s not amounts to current level hysteria. Players as far back as forever, including Mantle and such, have also admitted to using performance enhancing drugs (amphetamines and such) during gameplay.
I could see cases made for Alomar, Dawson, Larkin, Martinez, McGriff, Morris, Murphy, Raines, Smith, and Trammell. I’m not sure I’d put them in but I’d have to take the argument seriously.
I am extremely unconvinced by the Blyleven naysayers. The dude had 242 complete games and 60 shutouts. There are legitimate hall of famers with less WINS than 242. (Note: I hate wins as a category, but those who don’t like Blylven tend to be from the “Numbers scare me, so I’ll use wins as my only criteria” camp.)
Speed doesn’t make you hit more homers. But leaving McGwire out means you can almost not put in anybody. They all are in question for HGH or steroids. There are designer drugs and labs working on performance enhancing drugs and masking agents all the time. Do we blow off the whole generation? Do you think players are not using now? It ios a mess and a decision has to be made.
Precisely. That’s why McGwire has to go in.
Tiny Hall guy then.
Mac, Alomar, Blyleven, Raines and Larkin would comfortably fit into the upper half of the Hall. McGriff’s argument would be bolstered given credit (noticed I didn’t say “if”) for the strike seasons, in which case he clears 500 homers easily. And Raines’ career got porked by three strike seasons. Edgar Martinez is the best pure hitter on the ballot, fairly borderline but I’d probably let him in.
Wasn’t Alomar that guy who spit on an umpire?
Mac’s a shoo in I think but the rest don’t deserve it.
Regarding Blyleven, he should have 300 wins in his career but he played on a lot of bad teams, and 3k strikeouts (he has 3.7k) should be like 3k hits. But sadly, they’re not.
I dunno why people love Raines so much. Historically, other base stealers have been better (Maury Wills never gets the fame he deserves,) and in his time, he was overshadowed by Rickey and Vince Coleman. Heck, even Jose Canseco had steals.
Canseco was a base stealer and a home run hitter . He cranked out RBIs and occasionally struck out. He did baseball a favor with his book.
I hate Alomar, would never consider voting for him, though others would. McGwire will get in, but on someone else’s vote, too (as if I had a vote), and Canseco, not so much, though I too view his writing as a positive thing. I’d vote for Blyleven and for Raines. Larkin and MacGriff strike me as weak candidates, and I’m disinclined to support men with marginal claims. They weren’t big in the way I want HOFs to be big.
I’m stunned people aren’t citing Alomar as an obvious choice. Geez, have people already forgotten how great he was?
My view:
Roberto Alomar
Easy first ballot selection. An absolute no doubt choice.
Kevin Appier
Had his moments, but not enough of them.
Harold Baines
A very good player, as we all know, but never really great. He’s better than a lot of guys in the Hall of Fame, but I’d not vote for him.
Bert Blyleven
Absolutely.
Ellis Burks
A great talent, cut short by injuries.
Andre Dawson
Andre will likely get in someday, but like most folks who’re willing to consider all the evidence, it’s just hard to vote for a guy with an on base percentage that bad.
Andres Galarraga
I challenge you to find a player of this quality whose career seems over TWICE. After a good start with the Expos, Galarraga completed fell apart in 1990-1991. went to St. Louis, and was awful. Then he was drafted by the Rockies and got a totally new start; yeah, Denver helped, but he really was hitting well. He went to Atlanta, had a great year but then got cancer and had to spend a year being treated. But he comes back anyway and has more good seasons. How about that. (I’m still voting no.)
Pat Hentgen
Mike Jackson
Eric Karros
Ray Lankford
No, times four.
Barry Larkin
An interesting argument. Looking at the deep stats, I’m gonna say no for now. Legitimately great talent; I’d be voting yes had he not been so frequently hurt.
Nah, I change my mind. Yes.
**
Edgar Martinez**
I don’t think so. Legitimately awesome hitter but not in an especially long career and had next to o defensive value. The Prospectus guys rate Martinez as having 69 WARP, which would be extremely low for a Hall of Famer, but he got most of that in just eight or nine years. I think that sums him up.
Don Mattingly
Again, just not around long enough.
Fred McGriff
Sort of Harold Baines plus 5 percent. Still no.
Mark McGwire
I really have no idea what to say, so I’ll say no.
Jack Morris
A good pitcher for a long time, but never really great. So, he’s kind of the Harold Baines of pitching.
Dale Murphy
Had a heck of a run there but, again, there wasn’t quite enough of it. What about Murphy was any better than Dewey Evans?
Dave Parker
Sort of the same comments as with Murphy, except with less Mormon and more cocaine.
Tim Raines
Raines is a player who, when I looked at his career, was amazingly great but not for as long as I’d expected. So he’s not quite the upper tier HOFer I thought he was. But I still think he’s good enough. Yes.
Shane Reynolds
David Segui
Lee Smith
No-no-no.
Alan Trammell
Trammell is a neat argument. His career numbers compare very favourably to many shortstops, but if you look at his career he really had only one GREAT season, 1987. He’s sort of comparable, careerwise, to Barry Larkin, and yet if you go year to year they don’t look anything like. But overall, yeah, I think so.
Robin Ventura
Ventura’s my personal example of why you can’t always trust your eyes watching a player. For years I was convinced he was the worst defensive third baseman since Dave Kingman. Every time I watched the guy he’d botch something. I must have been bad luck for him. But then I’d look at the stats and realize that, by some bizarre twist of fate, the eight games I’d seen him play just happen to have been th ones in which hae made half his errors. It went on for years. It was weird, like I was a jinx.
Todd Zeile
Nosed out Gus Zernial for the title of All Time Homer Champion Whose Name Ends With A Z. That’s enough glory for him.
So I vote for:
Roberto Alomar
Bert Blyleven
Barry Larkin
Tim Raines
Alan Trammell
Raines’ steals are like 2nd or 3rd on his priority list. #1 is his stellar on base percentage, one which puts that of Brock, Coleman, and Wills to shame (and teammate Dawson-SIXTY points higher). And I’ll note he has the best (last I checked) caught stealing percentage of all time, for those with 300+ steals. RickJay, note the time Raines missed due to the strikes-almost a full season’s worth (yes I know you gave him a thumbs-up. but a quick scan of his 1981, 1994 & 1995 seasons sometimes gives people the impression he was hurt or a part-time player in those seasons-he wasn’t).
As long as I’m editing, Ventura’s D was pretty stellar, and might put him into the discussion.
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And 69 WAR isn’t that low (Edgar M.). Would place him 65th all-time amongst position players (if you consider DH a position-I have no real issue with his time there).
Wow. Roberto Alomar is actually being left off of people’s lists? Wow! Is there a part of his game that could be reasonably argued as lacking?
That people would leave out McGwire is indicative of everything that is wrong about the sports Halls. You can’t be justified in excluding him because of his andro use because he hit 49 homers as a rookie when he was thin as a stick. You aren’t justified to exclude because of his poor career numbers (because they weren’t poor). You aren’t justified to exclude him because he didn’t have a meaningful impact on the game… So you’re excluding him because he’s kind of an unlikable guy? A little irrational in my opinion.
I’d put in McGwire, Alomar, Blyleven, Raines, and probably Edgar Martinez. The DH argument is an especially hollow one with me. You’re penalizing someone for being a DH? If a player gets put into the lineup at the DH position, is he supposed to demand to play defense or sit out that game? Should he demand a trade to the NL? Seems a lot like penalizing a running back for not throwing enough touchdowns; if it isn’t part of your position, why are you being judged by it? Especially hollow with Edgar, who played a third of his games at 3B and 1B. I say probably on Edgar because I’m not versed enough in the history of the game to know how his numbers would have stacked up with other 3B had he been selfish and demanded to play defense so he could get into the Hall.
Man, The list is getting loaded with guys I like and It makes it hard to separate Heart votes from head votes. I like Trammel, Galarraga, Morris, Murphy, Martinez, Mcgriff and Burks.
Alomar is the only clear vote-in for me however.
Because playing defense has real value. Of course that should affect his HoF case.
I think a lot of people are put off by his final three seasons. In 2001 the man was the best second baseman the game had seen since Ryne Sandberg and in 2002 he was no better than a second-rate scrub. He never regained any level of success and retired as a nobody.
The fact that these troubles began in New York also make me believe that people think he was a terrible player for a lot longer than he was (I know I could have sworn his stint with the Mets was longer than a season and a half).
Alomar’s umpire spitting and horrible last few years work against him. Still, he’s probably the best player in a very weak year. However, he’s not a first ballot player.
Blyleven is a weaker candidate than Don Sutton, who should not be in.
Exactly. I see his stats, but I only saw him play everyday as a member of the Mets, and I would consider my personal observations to be invalidated if I were to go along and approve of the worst, non-hustling, non-leader piece of shit I can remember for the HoF. If he spent a year or two on the outside looking in (I’m sure he’ll get in eventually despite his final years, just not due to New York-area voters), that would seem only just to me, especially since Blyleven is so strong a candidate.